Several of the marvelous high-tech greenhouses in the Gaza town of Morag, which were bought for the Palestinians by Bill Gates, were destroyed by Palestinian gunmen on Friday.

Several greenhouses belonging to the former settlement of Morag in the Gaza Strip were destroyed over the weekend during an attempt by dozens of gunmen to take control of the area.

The Palestinian Company for Economic Development, which is in charge of thousands of greenhouses that used to belong to Morag and other settlements in Gush Katif, said the attack, which took place on Friday, was the latest in a series that began almost immediately after the settlements were evacuated.

The company revealed that hundreds of greenhouses and other agricultural installations have been sabotaged over the past few months, expressing its outrage over the recurring phenomenon. The company issued an urgent appeal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Interior Minister Said Siam to intervene to halt the attacks on the lands belonging to the former settlements.

These greenhouses and other installations and projects provide a source of income for over 4,500 families, company officials said. We are very disturbed by the recurring attacks and thefts. Such actions jeopardize the largest agricultural project carried by the Palestinian Authority after the Israeli withdrawal.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, another case of internal violence in the Gaza Strip where rivalry between the governing Hamas group and Abbass Fatah faction has led to bloodshed in recent weeks.

Fahd Abu Amraim is a bodyguard for Tareq Abu Rajab, chief of General Intelligence, who was not in the area at the time. Abu Rajab reports to Abbas.

Hamas preachers set the stage for bloodshed.

In yet another indication of growing tensions between the two movements, Fatah sympathizers in the Gaza Strip have begun boycotting Hamas-controlled mosques, accusing the Islamist movement of inciting against their leaders.

On Friday, thousands of worshipers refused to enter the Farouk Mosque in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, saying the preacher was planning to verbally attack Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and other PA leaders. The Fatah supporters prayed in the streets while their Hamas rivals prayed inside the mosque.

Like most mosques in the Strip, the Farouk Mosque is controlled by Hamas. Leaders of Abbass Fatah party have in recent weeks expressed deep concern over incitement in the mosques, saying Hamas preachers were exploiting Friday prayers to launch scathing attacks on them.

Hamas officials dismissed the allegations as lies and said the only incitement was that coming from Fatah. This is the first time that Fatah supporters are boycotting Friday prayers at a mosque in the Gaza Strip. Preachers at the services often target Israel, the US and corruption in the PA.

Maher Miqdad, a Fatah spokesman in the Strip, accused Hamas of using the mosques to incite against political rivals. They are preparing the stage for bloodshed, he said. Some of them have even been calling for the elimination of their opponents, whom they describe as apostates and infidels.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian security foiled the second attempt in two days to kill top commanders loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in what officials in his
Fatah party said Sunday was a "clear conspiracy" against their leaders.

Fatah officials stopped short of openly accusing the rival Hamas militant group, which controls the Palestinian government. But the latest bout of Palestinian infighting, mainly over control of the security forces, has raised fears of civil war.

Gaza security chief Rashid Abu Shbak, a central figure in the power struggle, was the target of an attempted bombing Sunday, security officials said.

Security forces found and destroyed a 154-pound roadside bomb along a route used by Shbak's motorcade. The road is inspected each morning before Shbak heads to work.

The discovery came a day after Abbas' intelligence chief, Tareq Abu Rajab, was seriously wounded and one of his bodyguards was killed when a bomb loaded with metal pellets ripped through an elevator shaft in his Gaza headquarters.

Since Hamas defeated the long-ruling Fatah in legislative elections early this year, the two sides have been locked in a power struggle.

Abbas, a political moderate, was elected in separate presidential elections last year and wields significant authority, including formal control over some security forces.

Abbas tried to calm the tensions, saying the sides could not allow the situation to deteriorate. He said a Fatah-Hamas dialogue would start Thursday in an effort to defuse the crisis.

"Civil war is the red line that nobody dares cross, no matter which side they are on," Abbas said on the sidelines of a
World Economic Forum meeting in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

In April, Abbas angered Hamas by placing Abu Shbak in charge of three security agencies that report to the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry. The Islamic militant group responded by forming its own security force.

The 3,000-member Hamas militia was deployed for the first time last week, despite orders from Abbas not to form the unit. In response, forces loyal to Abbas came out in large numbers.

After the bomb was discovered Sunday, Fatah activists demonstrated in Gaza City and the southern town of Rafah.

In Rafah, about 1,000 rallied, some of them masked and firing rifles in the air. One in a car shouted through a loudspeaker, "No to the black militia!" Hamas's black-clad forces left the streets of Rafah before the Fatah march.

Later in the day, the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security agency stepped up patrols in the streets of Gaza and restricted access to their headquarters.

Fatah officials suspect Hamas was behind both incidents over the weekend but have stopped short of openly accusing the militant group of involvement.

"There is a clear conspiracy aimed to target Fatah leaders and the security chief in the
Gaza Strip with suspicious objects," Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa said. "What happened today near Abu Shbak's house and yesterday with the intelligence services is proof of this."

Abbas wants
Israel to conduct peace talks through him, bypassing Hamas, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert played down that possibility in an interview with CNN broadcast Sunday.

"Abbas doesn't have even the power to take charge of his own government," said Olmert, who is on his way to Washington for talks. "So how can he represent that government in the most crucial, complex and sensitive negotiations, about which there are so many divisions within the Palestinian community?"

Israel has cut all ties with the Hamas-led government and has frozen monthly transfers of $55 million in taxes it collects for the Palestinians. Israel, the United States and Europe have all demanded that Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel.

The sanctions, coupled with a halt in financial aid from the United States and Europe, have left the Hamas government broke and unable to pay the salaries of 165,000 employees for the past two months. The budget crisis has increased economic hardship for the poverty-stricken Palestinian population.

On Sunday, Israel's Cabinet approved the release of $11 million in withheld Palestinian money to buy medical supplies for the Palestinians. Olmert said the aid would be given directly to Palestinian hospitals to ensure it does not reach the hands of militants.

Also Sunday, Israel's Defense Ministry approved the expansion of the municipal boundaries of four Jewish settlements, a practice the United States has opposed in the past. The announcement came just as Olmert left for Washington for his first meeting as prime minister with
President Bush.

Meanwhile, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a homemade rocket early Sunday at the southern Israeli town of Sderot, hitting an empty classroom but causing no injuries, the army said. School had begun, but children were in a separate room for morning prayers when the rocket crashed through the roof, school officials said.

The army responded with artillery fire toward launching areas in northern Gaza, the army and witnesses said.

A group calling itself Al-Qaeda in Palestine said it carried out a bombing against the Palestinian intelligence chief and threatened more attacks in a statement posted on the Internet.

"We declare our full responsibility for this operation," the group said in the statement, whose authenticity could not be independently verified.

"Your mujahedeen brothers managed to place a bomb in the special lift used by the apostate Tareq Abu Rajab ... but were hasty in detonating the device which should have been triggered once the lift door was closed."

Abu Rajab, overall head of the Palestinian intelligence services, was seriously wounded and his bodyguard killed in Saturday's blast in a lift at the services' Gaza headquarters.

The Internet statement also threatened other "apostate" Palestinian officials Sunday, including moderate Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas and the longtime Gaza strongman of his mainstream Fatah movement, Mohammed Dahlan.

A large bomb was discovered Sunday next to the Gaza City home of Rashid Abu Shbak, the overall head of the Palestinian security services, security sources said.

The 70-kilogramme (150 pound) device was discovered on the road outside his home in the south of the city shortly before Abu Shbak had been due to drive to his office.

Abu Shbak is one of the most powerful figures in Abbas's Fatah movement which is locked in a vicious power struggle with the radical Islamist movement Hamas which is now in government.

A group proclaiming its loyalty to the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden announced its formation in the Palestinian territories in a statement received by AFP on May 8.

In March, the Israeli authorities announced that they had detained two Palestinians from the West Bank city of Nablus late last year on suspicion of working for Al-Qaeda in the first such arrests by Israel.

Abbas said earlier the same month that his security services believed an Al-Qaeda cell was operating in the Palestinian territories.

General Dani Arditi, head of Israel's anti-terrorist office, said last October that Al-Qaeda had infiltrated the Gaza Strip from Egypt's neighbouring Sinai peninsula after the withdrawal of Israeli troops the previous month.

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